(HOUSTON) - Richard Carl Green, 46, of Dickinson, Texas, has been sentenced to 41 months in federal prison without parole and ordered him to register as a sex offender for possessing child pornography, United States Attorney José Angel Moreno announced today.

U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison handed down the 41-month sentence and further ordered Green to serve a life term of supervised release during which, in addition to registering as a sex offender, he must comply with special conditions designed to limit his access to the Internet and to protect children. Green was convicted of the federal felony offense after pleading guilty on Dec. 17, 2009.

The charges against Green are the result of an investigation conducted by the Galveston and Houston offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Texas Department of Public Safety and Kemah Police Department. Green was arrested on Aug. 27, 2009, and remained on bond pending his sentencing. Today, immediately following today’s sentencing, the court ordered Green into the custody of the Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his sentence.

The ICE investigation began when agents with Newark ICE determined Green had paid for a subscription to a child pornography website. ICE agents identified the server hosting the child pornography website in Tampa, Fla., and executed a search warrant at that location. The search yielded e-mails and log files as well as the images/videos that could be accessed on the website, including two e-mails from Green to the webmaster dated April 15 and 16, 2008, stating he had not received his purchase and asking the child pornography site to please check on it along with an April 17, 2008, reply from the webmaster to Green stating he has been billed $79.99 and provided a URL to access the child pornography website. Logfiles showed that Green accessed the child pornography website between April 17 and May 1, 2008, from a computer at his home in Dickinson.

Galveston ICE agents secured federal search warrants for Green’s residence in Dickinson as well as his business in Houston and executed the warrants on March 19, 2009. Images of child pornography were discovered on the defendant’s computer in his office, a computer in his home and on a number of CDs also found in his home. More than 1000 images and 127 videos containing child pornography were found in the items seized. The CDs, which contained the videos, were labeled “LS videos” and “LS pics” which is a known reference to a child pornography site.

The images and videos were sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who were able to verify that images from 19 identified victims were found on Green’s computer equipment.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.